September Home Loans in Spain
Septembers provisional figures for Spanish mortgage performance were published today
In general across almost all areas the figures were an improvement on August.
The number of new Spanish home loans constituted in the month were 29.388 up 9.2% on the same month of the previous year. Capital lent increased yearly by 19.7% and the average loan size was up 9.6%.
The average loan size in September reached €123.6k the highest average seen for a number of years. After the significant drop in average loan sizes in August Septembers mortgages in Spain not only recovered but well exceeded normal levels.
The increase in the loan size could be due to a recovery in mortgage levels for Barcelona where the average buying price is much higher along with the fact that Madrid also had a very good month on home completions and loans granted.
Monthly increases
The number of new loans increased by 22.6% over the previous month and gave the Spanish Banks the biggest addition to their loan books for many years as redemptions and cancellations on credit for residential purposes reached 21.370 some 8018 below new business flowing in. Annually accumulated the number of new Spanish mortgages in 2017 are up 12.4% the average loan size is up 5.9% and combined the level of capital lent is up 19.6%.
The level of credit being granted for buying homes made up 63.7% of all new borrowings. In August this dipped to 57% and fell below the normal 60% level.
Seasonal trends
Whilst the numbers show a good month the increase in the level of newly granted loans in September over August as a trend was lower than it has been for the last 5 years the same is the case for capital lent despite the very high average loan size. This may partly be due to a smoothing out completion activity across the year rather than the historic monthly spikes that used to be seen.
Average interest rates
Interest rates showed a small increase within the month.
Whilst still well below last years figures both the average variable rate and the fixed rate averages crept up slightly.
The average rate moved from 2.77% up to 2.83% this was the highest average interest for 3 months.
The average variable rate moved from 2.55% in August to 2.65% in September with the average fixed rate moving from 3.16% to 3.20%.
Fixed rate as a mortgage type product saw a dip in September dropping to 36.6% of all new lending from the previous months 40% of all new loans. Whilst there has been an increase in the best buys some Banks in Spain like Bankinter dropped their interest rates down again in October and November.
Key regions perform well
Regionally Cataluna and Madrid saw much higher levels of activity in September. Of the other key region of Andalucia saw a fall in the number of new loans. For those regions best known for their second home purchasers the Balearics off of small numbers saw a decrease, as did the Canaries with Valencia and Murcia both seeing an upturn in the number of new loans made within the month.
Annually the figures are pretty much up across the board all key regions are showing healthy accumulated growth. The Canary Islands is one of only 4 regions down on the year of 2016 affected by lower levels of activity at the start of the year which is their key buying months.
Star performer of the year so far from a percentage increase point of view is the Balearics whilst off limited numbers it is the second year this region ahs seen good levels of growth. Other notable increases have taken place in Andalucia and, Valencia and Madrid.
Catalunas figures in terms of growth have been affected this year by the independence issues and whilst still showing yearly growth in the number of new loans is behind the other key regions.